Irish Eyes Are Smiling at New Ethicon Plant in Limerick

Ethicon Biosurgery will construct an EUR80 million, 60,000-sq-ft manufacturing facility  that will provide about 270 permanent positions and an additional 150 temporary jobs during the construction of the new facility, the company announced.

The new facility will be located at the National Technology Park in Plassey, County Limerick, Ireland, and is expected to open in 2015.

Ethicon Biosurgery, a Johnson & Johnson company, specializes in hemostasis products. The company makes lines of absorbable hemostats, including proprietary oxidized regenerated cellulose hemostats, absorbable gelatin powder and sponges, a hemostatic matrix, topical human thrombin, and human fibrin sealant.

According to an article in The Irish Times, the Irish Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton, met senior Johnson & Johnson executives and discussed this project as part of a recent IDA investment mission to the US. Bruton is reported to have said,

"Manufacturing is a central pillar of the Government's Action Plan for Jobs, and we have put in place a series of measures to help reverse the decline in employment in this area in the past. Today's announcement that Ethicon Biosurgery, a world-leading company in the medical devices sector, is establishing a manufacturing facility in Limerick with the creation of 270 high-end jobs is brilliant news."

The Limerick facility will manufacture Evarrest Sealant Matrix, a new product that helps stop bleeding during surgery. At the IDA Ireland announcement ceremonies at the Strand Hotel in Limerick, Dan Wildman, Worldwide President, Ethicon Biosurgery, said, "The decision to manufacture Evarrest Sealant Matrix in Ireland was due to the unique clustering of medical device manufacturing, automation and biomanufacturing skill sets across the Johnson & Johnson companies already operating in Ireland."

Evarrest Sealant Matrix is a component of the Evarrest Fibrin Sealant Patch that was approved by FDA in 2012. The Johnson & Johnson website describes the patch as "a novel product that rapidly and reliably aids in stopping problematic bleeding during surgery."

"Unexpected and uncontrollable bleeding during surgery poses a significant challenge to surgeons," Johnson & Johnson says, "and in some surgical procedures can raise the patient's mortality rate to 20%. Evarrest has been indicated for use with manual compression as an adjunct to hemostasis for soft tissue bleeding during open retroperitoneal, intra-abdominal, pelvic and non-cardiac thoracic surgery, when control of bleeding by standard surgical methods of hemostasis (e.g., suture, ligature, cautery) is ineffective or impractical."

Stephen Levy is a contributor to Qmed and MPMN.